


a century, a decade, and a little bit more (leave jagged edges and wounds that won't heal)

by arwainian



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 22:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11655726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arwainian/pseuds/arwainian
Summary: She leans forward and squints at him hoping if she just looks at him the right way all his masks will peel away and she’ll be left with nothing but who her brother really is under everything.





	a century, a decade, and a little bit more (leave jagged edges and wounds that won't heal)

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah I was inspired to write this by talking with friends about how Lup and Taako are really fucked up and need to talk to each other. Which of course means that Taako's distrusting nature and complete and utter aversion to talking about his feelings gets in the way.  
> There are some lines in this that I'm actually really proud of. I originally got stuck writing this because I couldn't figure out a way for it to move forward without either of the twins breaking out of character.Thankfully putting it down for a few weeks gave me enough distance to just delete what was giving me trouble and rewrite.  
> Well without further ado: Taako and Lup are Bad at Feelings but They Need to Talk Anyway

It’s months later. The day of story and song is over. The apocalypse is over. The fight for their lives that lasted more than a century is over. Lup has a body again. (The perks of being identical twins means that they don't need _her_ body specifically to make one suitable for her to inhabit.) There’s been weirder things in their lives than Taako dropping a bit of his blood into a big plant and a sister coming out. They have a hell of a time thinking of any examples though.

They’re cooking together. Cooking together like they always have. Except they're not because Taako’s wand is in a whole other room and he keeps double and triple and then _quadruple_ checking every single ingredient he adds to the mix like he’s never cooked fish before in his life.

Lup doesn't get it. It’s just rice and some fish. It’s something simple and familiar that they've made thousands of times together. It’s just to get used to cooking again. To have a taste of home again. To _feel_ home again with each other because, really, each other is the only home they ever had.

She doesn’t say any of that mushy business when she asks him to cook with her. She pulls out the “I haven’t had tastebuds in a _decade,_ Taako” when it looks like he’s gonna bolt. He looks like that a lot lately. He’s twitchy- twitchier than either of them were before that is. She hasn’t even seen him near the kitchen yet. ( _Taako._ Not going near a _kitchen_. That’s something she never thought she’d see.)

She practically drags him into the kitchen and she can feel him trying not to shrink away. She tries not to let that break her spirit. They should talk about it, she thinks. It being what happened to him during their decade apart. But he doesn’t seem to inclined to speak up about it. Which leaves her with the _lovely_ job of figuring out how to break past the six layers of fake personality he’s built up during that time.

She’s babbling about one of the stories she’d told herself when she’d gotten good enough at being conscious in the umbrastaff that she’d started getting bored while she pulls everything out of the cabinets and he lags behind collecting some pots and pans. As they prepare together she notices that he’s only touching the non-food items that they need which is...worrisome but better than nothing.

As they cook she hands him small ingredients, nothing too big and not asking him to do anything. He looks at the spices like they’re a bomb about to go off but he plays along and helps her cook anyway. All things considered, Lup’s rustiness and Taako’s weird reluctance included, the food comes out pretty okay for them (which is to say it looks fucking amazing but that’s not the point).

“One last step,” she says and smiles at the quizzical expression on Taako’s face. She pulls out two forks and hands one to him. He stares, searching her to see if she’s actually serious. Which, for the record, she is. Neither of them are ever _not_ when it comes to food.

“Dig in!” She hopes her smile doesn’t look half as forced as it feels. She doesn’t miss the way Taako twitches, like he’s forcing himself not to reach out for something. She _definitely_ doesn’t miss when he winces and bites the inside of his cheek. She chews and swallows but barely tastes the fish. That doesn’t stop her from still smiling and saying, “Not bad for a first attempt back together! Here, Taako! Try some!”

She pushes the plate towards him. He looks at it helplessly. He looks at her again and sighs before shoving the smallest amount of food that can still be considered a forkful into his mouth before he can back out of it. Lup notes with no small amount of distress that he looks vaguely sick.

When he swallows he looks away and starts muttering behind his hand. She just barely catches the words “lich” and “fine” and “didn’t even transmute anything” before he clears his throat and smiles his fucking _con artist_ smile.

“Tastes great, Lup.” Ohhhh no. Oh _hell_ no. She is _not_ falling for that. Not even _close_.

“Taako...what’s wrong?” she asks all gentle and sisterly.

Taako’s smile wavers for a second. (It had better. She sees right through that shit. She was there when he _learned_ that shit.)

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Welp. She gave him a chance to say something. She really did.

“Bullshit.”

“No-”

“Bullllllllllllll _shit_.” She leans forward and squints at him hoping if she just _looks_ at him the right way all his masks will peel away and she’ll be left with nothing but who her brother really is under everything. Taako stiffens further under her scrutiny and glares right back.

“I’m not talking about this,” he says and walks out of the kitchen.

She’s left standing alone wondering if the words meant to be tacked on at the end of his sentence are “right now” or “with _you_.”

* * *

He’s avoiding her. She just knows it.

* * *

Fuck! He’s _actually_ avoiding her. He keeps ducking out of rooms that she walks into with some lame-ass excuse that he knows she knows is fake. And when he can’t do that he very pointedly and deftly dodges every question she could possibly ask.

Fucker. Fucking shitty brother who’s too scared of emotional intimacy to even give his fucking _twin sister_ a hint about what the _fuck_ happened to him.

She doesn't even try to fool herself into thinking that she’s fine. With every skillful avoidance, every non-answer he offers her, she feels more and more like she’s still in that room with the curtains, cut off from the world.

She feels like a thread is about to snap in the tapestry of their lives together that they’ve woven. Or maybe it’s already snapped and she has to wonder how it frayed so much so fast.

Her mind is brought back to curtains that she scratched and screamed and tore at when she wanted so desperately to find a way out at first. And then, when it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, sitting quietly next to trying to stay sane when there was no noise except the distance ambiance of a cave system that she had to strain to hear. Or the when she was beside Taako again, in a way, placed carefully near him as he slept and wanted to badly to be able to help in some way other than fireballs while he cried and cried and cried.

An idea jumps out at her. It’s half baked but it’s what she has and she’s gotta at least _try._ (Is it cheating to bring up her own issues to try and get her brother to reveal his or is that what you’re supposed to do?)

* * *

“I still feel like I’m still in the umbrella sometimes,” she says when she’d got him alone and she’s between him and the doorway so he _has_ to listen to her. Checkmate, idiot. He can’t avoid answering if she doesn’t ask a question.

He doesn’t respond besides raising an eyebrow quizzically and with the barest touch of worry that he lets shine through his eyes so she keeps going.

“When things get too quiet, I think about how I could barely hear anything outside of that room unless I strained. And then I do try to hear better and I remember that it’s actually just quiet and I'm not there anymore. Or- or when I'm just waking up in the morning it feels like when I was in there and I could barely focus enough to _think_. Or how I wanted to help so much more than I could but all I could do from in there as blast shit and while that was really cool there was just so much I wanted to help you with and I _couldn't_.”

Taako looks like he’s about to say something. Maybe a thinly veiled plea to back off so he can suffer whatever’s been tearing him apart in peace but you know what? _Fuck that._ She keeps going.

“There was so much I could’ve helped with if I wasn’t stuck there struggling to even feel that I was right there next to you! And now that maybe I _can_ help you won’t let me close enough to even try!” She thinks she may have started crying. Taako looks distressed.

“Lup, I-” he starts to say and catches himself, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Fucking-

Fuck. This is all wrong. They need to be there for each other and talk shit out with each other and go back to how they were before... _everything_ happened. She stops holding back the last little bit she was saving him from.

“Ta-Taako I need to be able to talk to you! I need to be able to tell you what it was like for me in there! And I need you to talk to me about what happened to you! You need to talk about this too, I know you do!” She’s fed up, patience has never been her virtue. She knows that what they need is time but she can't wait that long. For _years_ all she’s had was time and she just wants to be with her _brother_ again. Is that really too much to ask?

He doesn't speak for a while, but don’t think she doesn’t see Taako start to tremble as he looks at her and tries to find words to say.

“Lulu…” he says. It’s not condescending or teasing. It’s small and scared, like how he would whisper to her when they were kids on their own and it was too dark and too wide open and curling up a foot away from each other was suddenly too far.

“Lulu, I don’t know how to talk about it,” he says, voice thick and hands shaking. Every bit of anger leaves her in a rush, and she pulls him into her arms because _dammit_ she can’t stand watching him fall apart so she’ll just have to hold all the pieces together herself.

“Taako...taako, I love you so much. I missed you so so much,” she chants and it’s a bit like a prayer that neither of them will get cut on all the jagged edges left by a lifetime of hardship and a decade apart.


End file.
